Santiago endorses Manny Pangilinan for President

MANILA — Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago asked the UP crowd to think of Manny Pangilinan when thinking about the next president of the Philippines.

“I want you to think about Mr. Manny Pangilinan for president of the Republic of the Philippines,” she said during her speech at the Maynilad Leadership Talk held at the University of the Philippines in Diliman.

“It is people like him, who should be elected to positions of leadership. It should not be people from highly publicized career because their careers where they are the leading celebrities might blind them to the fact that their qualifications are sufficient for the job. I’m particularly talking about people from mass media, film and television,” she added in a press conference.

Santiago also mentioned her criteria for choosing the next president which includes honesty, professional excellence and academic excellence.

“My qualifications are, number one, the president should be honest but that’s the most difficult qualification to determine because there’s no guaranteed test for honesty in public service. Second is professional excellence and the third is academic excellence,” the senator said.

She then noted the need for morale character to avoid corruption, adding that this begins in proper education.

“Maybe we (can) run a survey in internet and find out what the educated young think about all these circus in politics. Kaya nagiging corrupt kasi wala silang morale character, mahina ang morale character nila dahilan sa kulang ang edukasyon so this all starts with voter education,” she further said.